At present, foreign policy is not playing a part in the campaign. But with a looming crisis coming with Iran over the state of its nuclear capabilities, it will not be on the back burner for long. Soon, both President Obama and the Republican candidates for the nomination will have to make clear specifically how they would handle events. There is simply no escaping that formidable task.

In the important dispatch that is the cover of Newsweek International this week (but not the American edition of the magazine, whose editors evidently think it is too serious and will not sell copies), reporters Daniel Klaidman, Eli Lake, and Dan Ephron discuss the various impediments that might interfere with Barack Obama dealing meaningfully with the mullahs’ program to give Iran a nuclear weapon. The major problem remains differences on the issue with Israel, for whom an Iranian bomb is a real existential threat, not one that can easily be overlooked on the belief that if Iran gets the bomb, it will adhere to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, as did the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

As the Newsweek team reports, as recently as January 12 Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to inform him that the U.S. wants the time and space for sanctions to take effect, and most importantly, to convey that the U.S. “doesn’t want Israel to start a war — not yet, anyway.” Obama, they write, has three goals he must constantly juggle: to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran, to prevent the oil-economy from collapsing, and to manage Israel, which they consider a “wild card.”

The problem is that the various goals interfere with each other. The Israelis have tried to discern what would happen if Israel does strike Iran. They do not know what the U.S. will do if Israel’s leaders decide they must launch a strike against Iran. Nor does Israel know just how much the Obama administration really is committed to preventing a nuclear Iran.

The heart of the issue is a difference over when each power thinks Iran will attain nuclear capability. The authors write that a Pentagon source informed them that some of Israel’s activities — such as suspected assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists — interfered with the opportunity for a diplomatic solution the Obama administration prefers. After last year’s AIPAC meeting, they reveal, previous close cooperation between Israeli and U.S. intelligence and military officials ended and discussion between them over “planning, analysis and training cycles for a possible attack on Iran” also came to an end.

Now, a year later, Israeli officials believe that the Obama administration has changed, enough so that they see a “positive evolution” by the president on the question of what to do about Iran. They think that Obama is now ready “to attack if worse comes to worst,” and that the U.S and Iran face a “growing risk of a big conflict.”

38 Comments, 17 Threads

1.
Dianna

” Others are worried that economic sanctions might backfire, and the President might have to issue a waiver to protect the U.S. economy, which would “make the United States look like a paper tiger in the eyes of the mullahs.” ”

Will someone – anyone? – tell me what that means?

Why is there no mention that, were we to take out (say) Karg Island, we’d pretty much eliminate their POL terminals?

Why on earth is there an assumption that this has to be left to Israel – tiny, vulnerable, and a very long way from Iran Israel – to do something?

The concern is that sanctions might lead to significantly higher oil prices which would destroy any chance of an economic recovery. Iran produces about 5% of the world’s oil and the other producers could increase production to cover any deficit but it’s unlikely that they would as they benefit from increased prices. We’re already looking at $4 gasoline this summer… what happens if it goes to $5? How much formerly discretionary spending disappears into the tank of your car? Plus any energy cost increase ripples through everything you buy from food to a new TV.

“Why on earth is there an assumption that this has to be left to Israel – tiny, vulnerable, and a very long way from Iran Israel – to do something? ”

Everyone understands Obama is afraid of the US acting like a great power, and a worthless delusional pathological narcissist gutless wonder who cannot separate reality from that pile of left wing mush that substitutes for his brain.

How’s obama doing with the SHIITE CALIPHATE? Here it comes. Follow the pattern he has set up (with your money) throughout the Middle East. He is arming Iran, while surrounding Israel. AND RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES!
Again we have not connected the dots. They just simply are smarter! DUH.

The president will do what he has always done: vote present. He will take credit for what goes right, and deflect blame on what fails. He will continue to campaign and govern from Air Force One. Leadership and a clear stance on the issues are not forthcoming. The survival of the free world will depend on attrition and rebuilding after his administration. The “do nothing congress” is a projection of the do nothing president. In foreign policy, this actually may work to American interests as the Chinese, Japanese, OPEC, and London collect the debt interests on domestic policies.

Obama’s objective is to collapse the US economy, so he/they can remake the country as a marxist state. Foreign affairs are simply distractions that have to be managed.

If he even has objectives for foreign affairs, they are a) to weaken the US internationally, and b) ensure the eventual destruction of Israel. And since he obviously cannot state those objective in public, the overriding strategy of his foreign policy is to kick the can down the road. In the case of Israel, therefore, the objective is to prevent any action by anybody. Thus, he warns Israel not to act, and applies no pressure to Iran or any other enemies of the US. He hopes for minimal US military action, and for no foreign wars to break out that the American public would demand to participate in or manage. Beyond that, he knows the US carriers, military might and nuclear retaliation capability will prevent any country from acting against the US directly, and that the Bush protocols have made it many times more difficult for terrorist groups to cause another major problem in the US.

Vote present, prevent Israel from acting, minimize US forces at risk, destroy the country by economic means. The grand plan.

There may be ‘Great Truth’ to what you are trying to say….or maybe not….well then again it could be the obverse. The experience of existence (and Obama for that matter) is not unlike the rapier-like shaft of sunlight sneaking under the shade, stabbing into the Chinese squint of one’s consciousness, bringing up some sour mash acidity from last night’s frivolities along with the Southern Comfort and Crème’ de Menthe highballs, and you know how high yer balls can get with them things. It’s all intellectual clarity and terminal hangovers, hanging over dangling participles, hanging ten on the edge of a Niagara-like precipice of pedantic verbiage and Vedic arbitrage. That said, I intone words to live by, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”
Karl LeFong

Unless we are attacked directly – and the Iranians may or may not be that dumb – this administration will do nothing except squeal for more economic sanctions. Even an attack against one of our embassies or military installations overseas may not be enough to provoke 0 to military action against the mullahs. The other question, not asked frequently, is what will 0 do to Israel if it takes things into it’s own hands?

Obama has no intention of giving Israel any comfort. Or any friendship, really.

Whether he’s an Obama, a Duncan or a Soetoro…you aren’t going to find a whole lotta love for Israel in any of those genes.

And, whether sitting on the knee of Frank Marshall Davis, or in Bill Ayers living room or at dinner with Rashid Khalidi (what IS on that tape that the LA Times is hiding?), or in the pews with Jeremiah Wright or HIS friend Louis Farrakhan…you aren’t going to find a whole lotta love for Israel there either.

Or with Don Warden. Or Edward Said. Or with George Soros. Or with Robert Malley.

Or Valerie Jarrett.

“I have to deal with them every day”, is pretty much the attitude toward Israel of this administration, (and DECIDEDLY NOT the nation), at least until November.

Sanctions and diplomacy will begin to run the same course as they did with Iraq. “Milk and medicine” arguments by the economic jihadists will be melded with the “no military options” arguments. Which leaves…exactly nothing.

Everyone in the world knows that Obama is not going to put boots on the ground. And, unless and until they build a bunker busting drone…capable of wiping out 10,000 feet of mountain…he isn’t going to do much of anything except sit in his ivy tower of babble.

Israel is on its own…until maybe November. IF…we do the right thing…we can get back on course.

Obama hasn’t visited the COUNTRY in his entire tenure in office. He slammed the COUNTRY for building in their own cities. He sold out the COUNTRY by putting the pre-67 borders as a primary condition on the forefront of the negotiating table.

I don’t need to work hard to see that the treatment of the COUNTRY is not any different from the treatment of its appointed leader.

“What we now find is that the apologists for the Mullahs are busy unleashing a new round of propaganda, arguing that the neocons are trying to push the U.S. into a new war with Iran, just as they did under George W. Bush with Iraq.”

You don’t have to be an apologist for the Mullahs to see that many neocons and ancien-cons are indeed calling for war with Iran. All you have to do is read what they write in Commentary, PJM and other such publications. Whether or not the cons are right is another matter.

For a thorough and balanced article on the Israel-Iran crisis, see
“Will Israel Attack Iran?” in the January 29th NY Times Magazine:

r-i-i-ght. because the NYT is well known for its “balanced” approach toward Israel.

please. Obama’s hostility to Israel is obvious, and the Times is merely the house organ for the Committee to Reelect (for which I think we should resurrect the term “CREEP,” since Obama is so Nixonian). Obama has nothing good to say about Israel, other than empty words aimed at liberal Jewish pocketbooks during his incessant fundraising activities.

Netanyahu has to protect his citizens, and that includes not letting other countries “wipe them from the face of the earth” as Iran has threatened to do many times.

I am thoroughly puzzled why Obama wants to let every country in the Middle East have its own “arab spring” EXCEPT Iran? In 2009, the people of Iran came very close to overthrowing their own government. But the same tactics that we see now being implemented by Assad in Syria were also used on the Iranian people in 2009 and the rebellion was crushed. Yet we are making all of these demands at the United Nations for Assad to step down, with Hillary Clinton sitting there screaming like some sort of failed extra from a Weight Watchers commercial, and you hear nothing, absolutely nothing, about America DEMANDING that the mullahs step down in Iran. Why? If anything, Iran is WAY more important than Syria, both strategically and economically (for its oil). So why all the concern about Syria, which doesn’t have much bearing on the United States, and almost nothing about Iran?

For whatever it’s worth, I think that the Iranians are blackmailing Obama. The Iranians know that Obama is facing a tough election campaign and so have pretty much made a deal with him (diplomatically, of course). We don’t say anything about what’s going on in Iran, and Iran refrains from pouring troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilizing both of those nations. Obama wants to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible to placate his base. He won’t be able to do that if Iranian troops start making trouble in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Iran has the power to stop Obama from sticking to his withdrawal timetable, and Obama knows it. So Obama ends up not saying much about what Iran is doing. Even when Iran was caught red-handed trying to kill the Saudi ambassador right here in America, Obama and Clinton raised a few protests but that was it. Nothing much.

So what do we do? Get a new president in November, that’s what. The dynamic with Iran will not change until Obama is out of office. A new president will set new policy regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Iranians know that a conservative Republican will be A LOT different than Obama, just like Ronald Reagan was a lot different than Jimmy Carter. But the only question is, can the world hang on until November when a new president is elected? It’s going to be close, but maybe we can make it. With all of the covert operations going on in Iran right now, I’m sure something will set back their nuclear program for a few months until a new president can take over this mess. At least let’s hope so.

Well – besides the fact that the Iranians are Persian, not Arab – it’s because the Iranian leaders are already fundamentalist Muslims, in fact they’re the epitome of fundamentalist Muslim. The Muslim countries that are in revolt – Egypt, Libya, Syria – have essentially secular dictators as leaders. If you look closely, either Iran or groups in sympathy with them are doing the overthrowing, and trying to establish sharia-compliant theocratic states.

Paul, paul, by “arab spring” I just ment that Obama was supporting revolutions throughout the Muslim world, from Tunisia to Egypt. Why not support another Muslim uprising in Iran? And, by the way, Egypt now has the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists taking over that country. Egypt is quickly turning into another theocracy, but without much (if any) help from the Iranians. The Islamist wave is spreading throughout the Muslim world, but it already reached Iran over 30 years ago. I think the people there are about done with it, given how cruel it turned out to be and what an economic disaster it now is. There has to be a reason why Obama is not taking advantage of the Iranian people’s dislike of the mullahs and I think our upcoming elections have a lot to do with it.

You’re confused – the people of the Middle East want Islamism. So why should Iran have another revolution when they already have what they want?

GWB’s idea that people want to be free was well meant, but unfortunately naive. People don’t want to be free. They want to be enslaved, whether to be a big statist government or their religion that demands absolute obedience.

He won’t be able to do that if Iranian troops start making trouble in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Iran has been making trouble, particularly with destructive ordnance such as IED’s and, worse, EFP’s (explosively formed penetrators) against US service personnel in both those bordering countries for a very long time.

The community organizer in chief still wants to “negotiate” with those despicable barbarians, not the everyday citizens but people like the disgusting Khamenei, who is technically supposed to be dead by now but, like Fidel, keeps coming back from the grave.

Let me be clear, Tanstaafl. By “trouble” I mean really, really, big trouble. Like Tet Offensive style trouble. Throwing in a few divisions of Iranian forces into each country simply to wreck our day. True, we would be killing a lot of them (assuming Obama’s Rules of Engagement allow us to), but that would mean almost open war between the United States and Iran, something Obama does NOT want just before an election. And if the war widens, then who knows where it will go or what will happen. The Iranians could carry through on their threats to close the Straits of Hormuz, or they could end up supplying the Taliban with whatever they wanted, including some really nasty weapons, such as chemical warfare weapons. Don’t underestimate how nasty these people can be. We underestimated the Japanese in 1941 and the North Koreans in 1950 and got burned both times.

I agree with the premise that any Iran strategy or semblance thereof that The One™ advances between now and November will be influenced by how he perceives it impinges on his re-election.

Domestic policy, foreign policy, it doesn’t matter. Virtually every move that is made, or not made, is done in the light of one rather inept community organizer getting to screw things up for another 4 years.

Naturally he’s interested in not rocking the Iranian boat.

I will not forget Obama’s disgusting treatment of Netanyahu, 2 times N was in Washington DC. It was embarrassing for this country. Fortunately, Netanyahu got a standing ovation from Congress on the heels of being dissed by Obama.

Newsweek writes: “Obama, they write, has three goals he must constantly juggle: to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran, to prevent the oil-economy from collapsing, and to manage Israel, which they consider a “wild card.”

Are you serious??? Could you provide some hard factual evidence that Obama wants to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran? Just the facts, please. Facts. What has Obama done to prevent such a scenario? Did he enable regime change? No, he disabled regime change – when he deliberately, openly, refused to support the Demonstrators for Freedom in Iran and instead, sided with the dictatorship.

All that Obama has done about nuclear weapons in Iran, is to ‘speak against them getting such weapons’. Heh – the Obama Talk. That sure has results, doesn’t it. THINK. Obama lives, entirely, absolutely, in a World-of-Words. Obama is psychologically unable to connect to the real world of material actuality and facts. So, he lives only in Words. He actually thinks that all that He, The Great One, has to do, is Speak – and Iran will submit?! Who are the idiots here – we who accept his Word?

Prevent the oil economy from collapsing? Whose oil economy?! This is Obama, for heaven’s sake. This is the guy who stopped the Keystone Pipeline. This is the guy who has forbidden Gulf drilling for oil; who has forbidden new oil developments in the US, in Alaska, and who has instead, sent BILLIONS of US taxdollars to support the Brazilian oil developments of his buddy, Soros.
This is the guy who is, instead, funding more of his cronies, in bankrupt ventures into wind and solar power – rather than enabling US oil development.

Israel is a wild card? I don’t think there’s any evidence that Obama and his Gang consider Israel a ‘wild card’. They are just plain anti-semitic. That’s what that’s all about.

You, Radosh, say that Obama is ‘juggling these three agendas’?! No way; he doesn’t have such agendas. Obama’s agendas are very clear, both in his words and his actions.

He’s destroying the capitalist economy of the US by disabling the economic strength of the middle class and increasing the size of an Entitlement Government.
He’s destroying the democratic infrastructure of the US by disabling Congress, State powers and church integrity.

In foreign affairs, he’s enabling a continuation of repressive tribalism in the Middle East, preventing the formation of a middle class and democracy in these areas, enabling corrupt cronyist socialism in Latin America, strengthening the imperialism of Iran. And Russia. Weakening the role of the US. Strengthening the corruption of the UN…..Quite a list. To juggle.

There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. –Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on “Face the Nation,” March 27, 2011

Wasn’t even a fricking year ago.

Only a complete dupe of the Cult of Obama would really believe that these blind mice serving President Feckless have a clue to the reality of the situation in Iran, much less how to deal with it. Hell, these rubes are still bragging about Obama giving the order to kill Bin Laden once located, as if that was some historic breathtakingly brave and monumental decision that probably even rescued the economy. I have absolutely no faith in President Obama and his idiot cabinet to have an ounce of moral clarity about how to properly deal with Iran, much less tell the truth about it.

The longer situation is allowed unimpeded, the weaker our hand gets and the graver the danger to Israel. Time to pull the collective thumbs from our ass and quit dithering, ‘O’. Can’t vote “present” on this one, though I’ll bet a hundred bucks right now, you’re going to try.

Criticize George Bush for Iraq all you want, libs. But I’ll bet he never once looked at Saddam Hussein and thought, “Now that there’s a ‘reformer.’

The only immediate goal I see this particular president juggling (with any gusto, that is) is getting himself re-elected and attempting to manipulate his beyond brain dead base into believing that nasty, evil republicans want to outlaw contraception.

Now, a year later, Israeli officials believe that the Obama administration has changed, enough so that they see a “positive evolution” by the president on the question of what to do about Iran. They think that Obama is now ready “to attack if worse comes to worst,” and that the U.S and Iran face a “growing risk of a big conflict.”

Just last week or so, in a sit down with Matt Lauer, Obama was yakking about the importance of pursuing sanctions and negotiating with Iran.

Smart Israelis (and that includes Netanyahu) understand that dealings with this president and his immediate administration are a crapshoot.

Radosh is incorrect to think obama has three goals. obama’s only concern is getting re-elected. Everything else is secondary. We will go to war with iran if that’s what it takes. If Israel attacks iran, so much the better for obama.

Radosh, what alternate universe do you inhabit? The kindest thing that can be said about Obama’s Dilemma is he bumbeled into it all on his own! I seem to recall him giving Iran deadline after missed deadline, threatening dire consequences which never appeared. All of this has been on his plate for 3 yrs. The Clintons’ descriptions of him are sooo apt, an emply suit, and no there, there. Since Americans haven’t change presidents during WAR, I expect one before November. October surprise anyone?

Mr Radosh, you are still very naive about Obama working hard to mix three different things : Get reelected- avoid to look weak in front of the mullahs and the rest of the world – defend Israel .
1) Obama is weak, will continue to be weak and the butchers in Syria, the petro-nazis in Iran hare having the best time in their lifes with that puppet, so there is nothing left to look strong. Obama definitely wants the Mullahs to get their nukes , it serves his grand strategy of debasing the western world.
2)Defend Israel : Quite the contrary, he wants to defeat israel, he wants to give the military edge to the petro-nazis, to the muslim brotherhood, and if by stupid naivity Israel would warn in advance Obama of the coming strike , Obama loose lips would sink their initiative.How do you qualify Mr Panetta statement that the MOP (13 ton bunker-buster bomb ) are not able to destroy the iranian bunkers ? That’s worse than Bradley Manning wikileaks, this is a mega-leak . How do you qualify Mr Panetta whistleblowing to Iran of the april-may-june timetable for an israeli strike ? Treaon- treachery- mere frivolity ?
3) Get relected. that’ s it and nothing else.
So I see quite a lot of wishful tinking in your analysis, that ‘s strange coming from you.

Tanstaafl wrote, “We underestimated the Japanese in 1941 and the North Koreans in 1950 and got burned both times.”

So true! Who knew that China would send troops to aid N. Korea. And who knew that the cultured Japanese would give themselves permission to brutalize people into submission. And who knew what would have happened had Sadam Hussein gotten an atomic weapon, given his penchant for scourging his own people. And who knew what would happen if Iran got an atomic weapon and the capacity to deliver it.

The problem with the future is that it is undefined. We’re just damn lucky the floor does not cave in when we step on it. The balance of power is always dynamic. Therefore, those people who have the power need to shape the future as best they can without assuming that their goals will be met. Denial of power equals the creation of a vacuum. That vacuum will always be filled. That is why Paul and Obama are wrong about expressing power. Both are willing to look chaos in the face and say, “Oh well, better them than us.” The choice not to express power is surrender to chaos. Every rational creature fights chaos. It is only the quality of the outcome that differentiates us one from the other. I prefer the American system to Islam, Communism, Socialism, Utopianism, etc. America offers more degrees of freedom to individuals than any of those failed ideologies.

This is 2012, not 2002. We’ve heard all this fear-mongering before, and we know where it leads. The empire is dissolving. There’s no saving it. America’s power elite can’t control events. So let’s not make things worse. Persistence in the current bipartisan course (Obama is serving Bush’s third term) will not only cost more thousands of lives, it will further destroy freedom at home.

The Saudi Dictator wants America to sacrifice thousands more American lives, borrow and spend $Trillions more American Dollars, and kill close to a million innocent Middle Eastern citizens, just so the Saudi Dictator can overthrow Iran and Syria and turn them into Saudi Dictatorships.

“Saudi written Sharia Law” is in the constitutions of Iran and Syria. This means Iran can never be free, or a democracy. So the overthrow of Iran is simply to replace a bad Iranian Dictator with a much worse Saudi Dictator.

Doesn’t the author realize the Saudi Dictator wrote the report for the UN that Iran even has a nuke? Is the author’s memory that short that he forgot that the Iraq nuclear report, by the Saudi Dictator to the UN, attested that Iraq had nuclear weapons, but it was based on a taxi driver. This Saudi report to the UN, is based on a nanophyte scientist, that knows nothing about nuclear weapons.

Doesn’t the author realize that it was the same bombers that bombed the Iranian citizens, that bombed the Israeli citizens? The bombers blamed the Iranian bombed citizens on Israel and blamed the Israeli bombed citizens on Iran. This is again the Saudi Dictator trying to start a war with FALSE FLAGS. Anything sound familiar about Saudi FALSE FLAGS? Doesn’t this author remember that it was Saudis that flew jets into the twin towers so they could blame Afghanistan, to overthrow Afghanistan, because Afghanistan has huge Uranium Deposits?

Doesn’t the author realize that the bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like, Saudi Dictators are much worse than the bad Iranian dictator?

Doesn’t the author see that the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Kenya are all much worse off under Saudi Dictator control than they ever were under the previous bad dictators.

Doesn’t the author realize that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is more afraid of “Saudi Puppet Obama” and what he will do to Israel, than Netanyahu was ever afraid of Iran and their nuclear program. Doesn’t the author realize that “Saudi Puppet Obama” has a TODO list of countries to overthrow, which include Syria, Iran and then Israel. Doesn’t the author realize that the “Saudi written Sharia Law”, that the Saudi Dictators write and use, calls for the total genocide of all Jews and the destruction of Israel as we know it today.

This article seems to be written from the Saudi Dictator’s point of view, who wants America to keep sacrificing American lives, borrowing and spending $Trillions, to overthrow Iran and hand it to the bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like Saudi Dictator on a silver platter.